When it came to the grocery store, I could readily see their part in discrimination-but I was blind to the larger pattern I was en meshed within, the overall social ladder inherent in where people lived, and so where they went to school (in those days). Inequity in a society fades into the background, something we habituate to rather than orient toward. It takes effort to shift it back into our collective focus.
Such self-deception seems a universal twist of attention. For instance, when drivers rated their abilities behind the wheel, about three-quarters thought they were better than average. Strangely, those who had been in an auto accident were more likely to rate themselves as better drivers than did those whose driving record was accident-free.
Even stranger: In general, most people rate themselves as be ing less likely than others to overrate their abilities. These inflated self-ratings reflect the "better-than-average" effect, which has been found for just about any positive trait, from competence and cre ativity to friendliness and honesty.
I read Kahneman's account in his fascinating book Thinking Fast and Slow while on a Boston-to-London flight. As the plane landed I chatted with the fellow across the aisle, who had been eye ing the cover. He told me he planned to read the book-and hap pened to mention that he invested the assets of wealthy individuals.
As our plane taxied down the long runway and found its way to our gate at Heathrow, I summarized the main points for him, including this tale about the financial firm-adding that it seemed to imply his industry rewarded luck as though it were skill.
"I guess," he replied with a shrug, "I don't have to read the book,now.
When Kahneman had reported his results to the money man agers themselves, they responded with a similar indifference. As he says of such disconcerting data, "The mind does not digest them." It takes meta-cognition-in this case, awareness of our lack of awareness-to bring to light what the group has buried in a grave of indifference or suppression. Clarity begim with realizing what we do not notice-and don't notice that we don't notice.
Smart risks are based on wide and voracious data-gathering checked against a gut sense; dumb decisions are built from too nar row a base of inputs. Candid feedback from those you trust and respect creates a source of self-awareness, one that can help guard against skewed information inputs or questionable assumptions. An other antidote to groupthink: expand your circle of connection be yond your comfort zone and inoculate against in-group isolation by building an ample circle of no-BS confidants who keep you honest.
A smart diversification goes beyond gender and ethnic group balance to include a wide range of ages, clien$s, or customers, and any others who might offer a fresh perspective.
"Early on in our operation, our servers failed," an executive at a cloud computing company says. "Our competitors were monitoring us, and soon we got a flood of calls from reporters asking what was going on. We didn't answer the calls, because we didn't know what to say.
"Then one employee, a former journalist, came up with a cre ative solution: a website called 'Trust Cloud' where we were com pletely open about what was happening with our server-what the problem was, how we were trying to fix it, everything."
That was a foreign idea to most executives there; they had come from tech companies where heightened secrecy was routine. The unquestioned assumption that they should keep the problem to themselves was a potential seed of groupthink.
"But once we became transparent," the executl.ve says,"the problem went away. Our customers were reassured they could know what was happening, and reporters stopped calling."Sunlight," as Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter once said, "is the best disinfectant."
When it came to the grocery store, I could readily see their part in discrimination-but I was blind to the larger pattern I was en meshed within, the overall social ladder inherent in where people lived, and so where they went to school (in those days). Inequity in a society fades into the background, something we habituate to rather than orient toward. It takes effort to shift it back into our collective focus.
Such self-deception seems a universal twist of attention. For instance, when drivers rated their abilities behind the wheel, about three-quarters thought they were better than average. Strangely, those who had been in an auto accident were more likely to rate themselves as better drivers than did those whose driving record was accident-free.
Even stranger: In general, most people rate themselves as be ing less likely than others to overrate their abilities. These inflated self-ratings reflect the "better-than-average" effect, which has been found for just about any positive trait, from competence and cre ativity to friendliness and honesty.
I read Kahneman's account in his fascinating book Thinking Fast and Slow while on a Boston-to-London flight. As the plane landed I chatted with the fellow across the aisle, who had been eye ing the cover. He told me he planned to read the book-and hap pened to mention that he invested the assets of wealthy individuals.
As our plane taxied down the long runway and found its way to our gate at Heathrow, I summarized the main points for him, including this tale about the financial firm-adding that it seemed to imply his industry rewarded luck as though it were skill.
"I guess," he replied with a shrug, "I don't have to read the book,now.
When Kahneman had reported his results to the money man agers themselves, they responded with a similar indifference. As he says of such disconcerting data, "The mind does not digest them." It takes meta-cognition-in this case, awareness of our lack of awareness-to bring to light what the group has buried in a grave of indifference or suppression. Clarity begim with realizing what we do not notice-and don't notice that we don't notice.
Smart risks are based on wide and voracious data-gathering checked against a gut sense; dumb decisions are built from too nar row a base of inputs. Candid feedback from those you trust and respect creates a source of self-awareness, one that can help guard against skewed information inputs or questionable assumptions. An other antidote to groupthink: expand your circle of connection be yond your comfort zone and inoculate against in-group isolation by building an ample circle of no-BS confidants who keep you honest.
A smart diversification goes beyond gender and ethnic group balance to include a wide range of ages, clien$s, or customers, and any others who might offer a fresh perspective.
"Early on in our operation, our servers failed," an executive at a cloud computing company says. "Our competitors were monitoring us, and soon we got a flood of calls from reporters asking what was going on. We didn't answer the calls, because we didn't know what to say.
"Then one employee, a former journalist, came up with a cre ative solution: a website called 'Trust Cloud' where we were com pletely open about what was happening with our server-what the problem was, how we were trying to fix it, everything."
That was a foreign idea to most executives there; they had come from tech companies where heightened secrecy was routine. The unquestioned assumption that they should keep the problem to themselves was a potential seed of groupthink.
"But once we became transparent," the executl.ve says,"the problem went away. Our customers were reassured they could know what was happening, and reporters stopped calling."Sunlight," as Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter once said, "is the best disinfectant."
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